Cold Knocks Me for a Loop

Sunday December 14-Thursday December 18, 2014
Gamble Rogers State Park
Flagler Beach, Florida

 

SUNDAY

 

 

Well if you have to have one doozie of a cold, this is a good place to do it with the beach right outside your window to cheer you up when you don’t have the energy to walk out the door.

David got the cold at Disney World and after we got back from the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, I started feeling the scratchy throat that is almost always the first sign a cold is coming on for me.   It got worse and worse and I was so out for the count on Sunday I did absolutely nothing.  Never went outside, didn’t take one picture.  Stayed in bed all day.

 

 

MONDAY

On Monday things were not much better.  You know I must feel awful if I didn’t have any of these fruit covered pancakes.  I thought they were beautiful and did manage the energy to take a picture of them.  David clearly enjoyed them.  He is still blowing his nose but feels pretty normal other than that.

 

 

 

 

 

David took the camera out to get the eastern sky at Sunset.  I could see it out the window but not enough energy to even go out on the boardwalk to the beach.

 

 

 

 

TUESDAY

By Tuesday I had enough energy that I could take my coughing sneezing self out to sit on the beach and read for a couple of hours.

 

 

Notice I’m in a long sleeve thermal shirt with lined jeans sitting on the beach and David is in short sleeves and shorts sleeping on the beach.

 

 

These guys were wearing their regular feathered attire.

 

It was wonderful fun watching flocks of pelicans just skim the top of the surf.  They would fly south like this and then circle back north further out from shore and do it all over again.

 

 

 

Not sure where he’s headed to but he was seriously marching up the beach, almost strutting.

 

These are the only kind of icicles you’ll find in Florida thankfully.

 

 

 

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday I still couldn’t get out for sunrise so David took the sunrise pictures.  He doesn’t actually go down on the beach at dawn like I do, he steps out onto the boardwalk about 3 minutes before it’s going to rise.  Today that was about 7:12AM.   He doesn’t do dawn.  Not sure he’d do sunrise either if he didn’t have an early morning (9:30) infusion appointment.

 

Here he is on the steps of the coach.  I think the others are taken from the boardwalk.  The sunrise is so beautiful.  It just makes me want to sing.  Well when I feel well enough to do it that is.

 

 

I actually can see the sun rise through the front window although the condensation on the outside made some streaks in this picture I took.

 

 

David’s morning and early afternoon are taken up with the infusion.  After breakfast, I feel well enough to get on with the holiday gift wrapping and to do the laundry.   The laundry set up here is great.  Not the machines necessarily although they are fine.  Two commercial sized washers but only one dryer which is difficult.  How do you dry two loads at the same time?  It takes forever.  But I digress. 

What’s wonderful is that the machines are in the pass through of the bath house so I can use my little cart (thank you Dan and Tricia) and take the laundry down, put it in the machines and go right down the steps to the beach to sit with my timer while they wash.  Could it be more convenient?

Unfortunately I didn’t use this plan today since I was behind in the gift wrapping and had a couple of other chores to take care of.   One of them was to tackle some very stubborn stains on a couple of towels and several napkins.  I put 1 gallon of hot water and half a scoop of Oxi-clean in a bucket and toss in the 4 napkins.  Stir it up, go do something else for an hour and bingo.  Stubborn stains gone.  Works on everything I try today.

 

 

I’m not up to 10,000 steps just yet but I can walk down the lane to get a picture of one of our neighbor’s  holiday decoration.  He has his tree on the dashboard and presents surrounding it.  Looks really festive.  I guess he has to pack it all up to drive down the road.  But it’s pretty now.

 

 

It is another beautiful beach day.  Upper 60’s, light breeze, blue skies.

 

 

The water color is particularly tropical looking.

 

On one of my trips down the beach from the coach to the laundry I chatted a moment with this pet owner taking her cat for a walk.  What a hoot!   Not even a leash.  She is just following him around wherever he wanted to go.

 

 

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I can see Winnona peaking through the foliage as I walk back.

 

 

I also see flocks of pelicans flying by.  I just love pelicans.  They look so prehistoric.

 

 

 

Of course I over do it on the first day I feel better and I’m in the bag by 7:00, the extreme coughing and sneezing has returned.

 

THURSDAY

 

Sadly, Thursday is our last day for this stay at Gamble Rogers.  I am not up for dawn, too tired.  I look out my window the sun us putting on such a show that I jump out of bed and run out to the end of the boardwalk so I can see it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a little later a flock of pelicans lands right in that same spot.  I don’t know if this is the same flock we see flying back and forth but it sure has been fun to watch them these past few days.  I go out to take some pictures and notice that one of them has a white head and the others brown.   Even more pelicans gather with this group but I don’t want to disturb them by going back out for pictures of the larger group.  By this time there are more than two dozen.

 

 

 

This morning David goes for his last infusion in this 3rd series.  Since second one this week takes a little less time.  Happily next week he has OFF when Carrie comes to visit though we all will be making a trip to Tampa to see his Myeloma Specialist.

My early morning burst of energy seems to have preceded a set back. I don’t feel as well as I did yesterday. The cold seems to have settled into coughing, sneezing and tired so I don’t do much at all today.

On this last day, I spend a couple hours on the beach and then the winds are just too chilly for me. After a nap, we begin our regular ‘day before moving’ pack up and take down. I’m in serious slo-mo.  Sure hope this is just a momentary set back.  I’ve got holiday plans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I did get some good news today.  Back in Virginia in October, when I had my physical , my total cholesterol had jumped up to 269.  Now that’s dangerously high.  My doctor referred me to a cardiologist who wanted to put me on statins.  No thanks but clearly I had to do something. 

Those of you who follow along with us continually probably noticed that we had slacked off on our vegan diet over the summer.   This was a wake up call and we went back to it strictly. 

I had the test done again Tuesday morning, 6 weeks to the day after the October test. My cholesterol has dropped to 154.  AND I’ve lost 10 pounds.   The value of a vegan diet to make rapid changes to your health cannot be overstated.  

Clearly it can with tolerate some “celebrations” like my birthday ice cream if the rest of the time I stick with it.   Good thing since Carrie is coming in two days and we’ll be partying at least a couple of the days she’s here.

Tomorrow we have what we call a long drive – 216 miles.  We haven’t gotten to do as much here as we had hoped, but at least David is feeling nearly normal and in spite of my set back today, I’m hopeful.  All of it thanks, at least in part, to the great environment we’ve been in for the past 8 days. 


Thanks for all the beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
The ones today were especially gorgeous. 
Can’t wait to return!!